This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Deep sea operations are an important part of many industries today. This is especially true in the oil and gas industry. As global energy demands increase and land-based oil and gas deposits decrease, there is a renewed demand to produce oil and gas from offshore locations. In fact, in 2007, more than a third of all produced oil was pumped from offshore locations. With advancements in shale production, the location of these oil production rigs is moving into deeper waters.
In the past, much of the equipment used in oil and gas production was located at the water surface on specially designed rigs. However, with advancements of deep water equipment, many of the required pumps, compressors, and mixing systems are now located subsurface, such as on the ocean floor. However, at these depths, the deep water equipment, including control and/or monitoring electronics, must be designed and configured to withstand the enormous water pressures exerted thereon. In fact, in some deep water applications, water pressure can exceed several hundred bar and water temperature can approach freezing (32 degrees Fahrenheit).
There are significant benefits in having control and/or monitoring electronics at subsurface locations, and particularly on the ocean floor. On site (e.g. subsurface) location of this equipment ensures that communication systems and lines are less likely to fail due to shortened communication lines and, thus, such systems can provide active control and monitoring of the associated equipment to ensure safe and reliable operation of the production equipment.
However, to enhance reliability of the control and/or monitoring electronics in such an extreme pressure and temperature environment, it is necessary to provide a protective enclosure that can stave off detrimental environmental effects, such as pressure and overheating, and further provide a safe and reliable enclosure and connection methodology to minimize the need for maintenance and/or replacement that can lead to significant operational downtime.
For at least these reasons, there appears to be a need to provide a ruggedized canister system capable of overcoming the disadvantages of the prior art.